Very behind in the updates. But let me say that Wednesday night's class may have been a milestone.
First off, we had a bunch of no gi guys from Demon Jiu Jitsu in attendance. These are the Eric Dahlberg guys from the Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island. Their gym was closed down for Passover, so they came over to train with us. Some really, really good grapplers. I rolled with a white belt who was about Joaobat's size (Jeff?) and a blue belt (Nathan?) who was about my height but stockier, probably closer to 175. I also rolled with some of our guys: Robert the blue, Arnell and Bruce.
Against Arnell and Bruce I did tremendously well. I was able to work chokes on both, got an armbar on Arnell, and managed to scissors sweep him twice. I HAVE NEVER SCISSOR SWEPT ANYBODY BEFORE WEDNESDAY NIGHT. Robert caught me in an armbar, but during our roll I actually slipped right into X-guard! I couldn't remember the sweep, or exactly how to destabilize him with my legs (hint: push out, extending your legs, instead of trying to "lift" him up with your legs). But suffice it to say that I have never been able to get into X-guard and I just fell into it Wednesday night as if I'd been doing it for weeks.
I couldn't do anything with Nathan, as is typical against these blue belts. I had him briefly in my guard, but he just powered out to pass. I did try and switch to an open guard before he did, but I was too late to establish my position and even managed to pass. Against the Demon white belt Jeff, I threw him around a little bit from the knees, but was never really able to get him into any advantageous position. I'm trying to learn how to pull guard more effectively based on what I saw in the Ryan Hall/Lloyd Irvin "sloppy guard pull" video from the Gameplan: wrist and collar, collar side foot in hip.
Given my little success with the scissors sweep, I'm thinking that I should include it as an attack combination in the Q2 GGP, maybe choke-to-scissors sweep-to-??? I'm determined to work more chokes into my game, and choke attacks help bring the arms up to defend, making it harder for the guy to stop the scissors sweep.
I've printed out some nice 11 X 17 copies of some of my key techniques from Rigan's encyclopedia. That should make it very easy to both study and focus on just those techniques that I want to add to my game. The scissors sweep--and the spider scissors variation--were definitely on that list.
I'm still having a tricky time with guys getting to my side if I don't lock them up with a closed guard. I know that I should turn on my side when that happens--I see guys like Rodrigo do that all the time. But from there, what exactly should I be trying to do? Get them in open guard or spider guard? I think I want to keep the knee down on the side that they are trying to come around and work to take their back by grabbing their near arm with my outside arm and pulling them down and past me as I swing around behind them--with my down leg providing a hook on their near leg. Marcelo winds up in this situation a lot. I need to take a peek at what he's doing.
Some bad news. I jacked up the little toe on my right foot and will probably be out until Monday's class. That will mean missing one class and only doing two classes for the week. Fortunately, Wednesday was a really good night.
Two weeks until the Pacific Northwest Jiu Jitsu championships. Two weeks from this Saturday to be specific. I need to start working my weight down bit by bit--most importantly, not letting it get above 160 this weekend. The toe will keep me off the treadmill unfortunately, so I may have to hit the weight bench instead. I've been thinking about tilting back toward more weights and less cardio anyway, as a way to help ward off injury and increase muscular endurance. That's the way things will go after the tournament anyway.
